Cisco enables service providers to reinvent networks for AI-centric operations
**Cisco's Agile Services Networking Empowers AI Connectivity**
In a world where AI applications are generating and consuming increasingly large volumes of data, Cisco, a leading networking and security company, has announced new solutions to meet the demands of AI connectivity. These innovations aim to help service providers handle the influx of data and monetize the services supporting AI traffic.
At the heart of these advancements is Cisco's Agile Services Networking, an architecture designed for simplified networking and assuring experiences with resilient networks and services through AI-powered automation, observability, and security. This purpose-built architecture is specifically tailored to support the high demands of AI workloads, which are data-intensive, latency-sensitive, and increasingly distributed across clouds, data centers, edge locations, and users.
The architecture addresses critical requirements such as lower latency and higher throughput, both of which are essential for the effective deployment of AI applications. This is achieved through advanced routing, switching, automation, assurance, and security capabilities. Unified management and automation tools, like the Unified Nexus Dashboard, simplify operations, increase visibility into AI workloads, and support scalable deployments.
By modernizing network infrastructure, service providers can offer new AI-driven services such as GPU-as-a-Service and Inference-as-a-Service, opening up new revenue streams. Cisco collaborates with industry leaders like NVIDIA and cloud providers to deliver secure, scalable, and high-performance networking solutions. These partnerships help service providers differentiate their offerings and tap into emerging AI-driven market opportunities.
Agile Services Networking enables service providers to monetize assured connectivity for AI workloads, supporting not only existing service models but also innovative, usage-based, and value-added services tailored to AI use cases. The first of Cisco's Silicon One-powered 8000 series is available today, with additional models targeted to ship in spring and summer of 2025.
The new Cisco Silicon One A100 and K100 devices are designed for fixed, centralised, and modular systems. These devices showcase the evolution of Cisco Silicon One, with new devices that enable customers to build networks with the flexibility AI services require. The first of Cisco's new coherent pluggable optics are targeted to begin shipping in spring of 2025.
In terms of sustainability, when compared to traditional, centralised deployments, one edge architecture use case utilizing the Cisco 8000 series is projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 324 metric tonnes CO2e across an assumed product lifetime and all product life phases when combined with Cisco's Takeback and Reuse program, and lower energy consumption by 80%.
Cisco's innovations are a significant step forward in the AI revolution, according to Jeetu Patel, the EVP and chief product officer at Cisco. He stated that the AI revolution is a massive potential tailwind for service providers. Network automation and assurance features are available now, and Cisco is extending Routed Optical Networking to simplify networks, improve management, and use less energy by further converging IP and optical layers.
In summary, Cisco’s Agile Services Networking is central to enabling service providers to deliver high-performance, secure, and scalable AI connectivity while offering new ways to monetize AI traffic through innovative services and infrastructure modernization. As AI continues to reshape the digital landscape, service providers are expected to play a critical role in defining how, where, and when data from AI applications moves across networks.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are being supported by Cisco's Agile Services Networking, which offers advanced routing, switching, automation, assurance, and security capabilities to handle the high data demands of AI workloads. service providers can leverage this technology to offer new AI-driven services and monetize assured connectivity for AI workloads, tapping into emerging AI-driven market opportunities.
